Tag Archives: qld cheers

Bookmark this post. Print it and keep it in your wallet. If you’re all about enjoying alcohol but maintaining good health, then read on.

From time to time our government puts out guidelines for alcohol consumption – but who wants to go through tables and tables of data? We’ve put together for your a sweet little infographic to summarise the guidelines for you.

Here it is in summary (numbers are inclusive):

Males:

Drink up to 4 drinks per week for low long term risk

Drink up to 6 drinks per week for moderate long term risk

Drink up to 10 drinks per week but cop a high long term risk

Drink up to 6 drinks per week for low short term risk

Drink up to 10 drinks per week for moderate short term risk

Drink 11+ drinks per week but cop a high short term risk

Females:

Drink up to 2 drinks per week for low long term risk

Drink up to 7 drinks per week for moderate long term risk

Drink up to 10 drinks per week but cop a high long term risk

Drink up to 5 drinks per week for low short term risk

Drink up to 10 drinks per week for moderate short term risk

Drink 10+ drinks per week but cop a high short term risk

Remember to enjoy alcohol safely! That’s all from QLD Cheers this week.

We would be amiss if we didn’t address the topic that’s most likely going through most of your minds in these late months of the year – Schoolies. If you’re planning to take part in the event as a Schoolie (or a Toolie!), there are some things you should know beforehand in order to make the most out of your celebrations. We’ve gathered a list of tips from some of the national schoolies websites in Australia to give you a bit of a head-start! Don’t worry, we’ll try and keep it short – we know you don’t like to read ;).

Getting Organised:

WHO will you go with?

It’s always best to travel with people you know and trust!

A larger group can bring down costs per person

WHAT will you do?

How long are you planning to stay?

Is everyone in your group over 18? Are there things to do for those who aren’t?

WHEN will you go?

Time your schoolies trip so you don’t miss any extra requirements for tertiary course entry. Lots of universities and TAFEs set interviews, auditions or entrance tests around this time of year.

WHERE will you stay?

Schoolies accommodation gets booked out fast so get onto this as soon as you can!

Hotels, motels, resorts, units/house, caravans, and campsites are all options

HOW will you get there?

Public transport, driving? Plan your route ahead of time.

Accommodation:

Prepare a budget so you’ll know how much you can afford to spend on accommodation and save enough money for other things like food, transport and having fun.

Know your rights and responsibilities when renting accommodation, especially with things like bonds, repairs and cancellations. Ask to see and read the ‘house rules’ before signing anything.

Keep your cash and other valuables in a safe place. If you choose to leave the door open, keep an eye on who is coming and going.

Be a good tenant. Leave your room, apartment or campsite in the state you found it. Report any breakages or damage and be prepared to pay reasonable compensation to the owner, if necessary.

Safe Partying:

Remember you don’t have to drink alcohol to have fun!

Know the liquor laws in the state where you’re holidaying.

If you’re over 18 years old, organise a driver’s licence, passport or proof of age card.

Avoid drinking in rounds and know your limits.

If you’re drinking, stay with people you know and trust.

DO NOT drink and drive.

If you think your drink has been spiked, tell a friend, bar or security staff, or the police.

If you think you’ve been sexually assaulted, tell a friend or family member, and go to a doctor or hospital.

Don’t accept drinks from strangers.

Don’t drink something you did not open, or see opened or poured.

If you’re unsure about your drink, leave it.

Remember no drug use is safe.

If you take drugs, tell someone else what you are taking in case you become sick or unconscious.

Disputes and Violence:

Stay cool when trying to resolve a dispute, whether with a bar staff, security staff or whoever. Being polite and courteous goes a long way to getting your problem solved.

Organise a ‘safe place’ where you and your friends can meet up if you feel threatened.

If a fight breaks out then move out of the area as quick as you can.

If someone’s threatening you or has assaulted you in any way, call the police on 000 immediately.

Travel in groups and always look out for each other. Don’t go out alone and stick to well-lit streets.

Report any assault, no matter how minor, to the police.

Accept the fact that conflicts and disputes will inevitably arise when you are living closely with friends and sharing your space. Often a bit of ‘time out’ will help clear the air when there’s been a disagreement.

We know it’s a lot to take in, but if it helps you or someone you know avoid an unfriendly situation then it’s worth every second spent. We hope you enjoy your schoolies week – it will be one of the most exciting weeks of your life! Keep safe, be responsible, and have FUN!

This week we interviewed a member of the community who been visiting our blog for the last few weeks and wanted to talk to us about their own experiences. We asked them a few questions about their experiences with alcohol and peer pressure, as well as their thoughts on what they could have done differently when they were drinking.

Here’s a recap of our interview!

Q. First off, how old are you?

A. I’m 22 years old.

Q. How often do you drink alcohol?

A. I actually used to drink a lot more alcohol than I do now. I used to be one of those guys who go out every weekend, I went clubbing and such all the time but now I’m more of a casual drinker – I don’t know the exact term, is it social drinker? I don’t know, I really only drink, and in low to moderate amounts, when I’m with friends and family in a social gathering or party now – I wouldn’t say I really go to any raging parties though.

Q. Is there anything in particular that contributed to this decline in drinking that you want to mention?

A. I think I just kind of realised that I was spending all my money on making myself sick to be honest, haha. I had a few slightly scary incidents that did help to put me off drinking a little; I do know of someone close to me that was hospitalised after a pretty horrible case of alcohol poisoning. They were okay in the end but it was a pretty scary situation for a bit there.

Q. Is alcohol poisoning something you’ve ever suffered from yourself?

A. Not in such an extreme way, but I have definitely been in the situation where I have had far too much to drink and completely lost track of what I was doing, and I think that any situation where you don’t have complete control of what you’re doing can potentially put both you and those around you in danger – and that’s something that is scary to me.

Q. Did you drink when you were underage?

A. Yes, I definitely drank illegally far too often and from quite a young age.

Q. What sort of impact do you think that had on your life, if any?

A. I think it really kind of numbed me to the effects that alcohol could have on people from early on – it was something that everyone was doing and I just joined in with the group.

Q. So peer pressure had a lot to do with your decisions?

A. To an extent, yeah. I think I was influenced a lot by what others were doing around me but in the end the blame can only really lie with the one who made the decisions, and that was me. Peer pressure does present a real challenge though because it really has an effect on a lot of people.

Q. Is there anything you’d do differently now if you were faced with those same situations again?

A. I think mainly I’d just try and be a little more responsible when drinking. It sounds cliché I know, but it freaks me out
a little now to realise how close a lot of my friends and I got to injuring ourselves when we were drinking so much that we had no idea what we were doing. Personally I think it’s a lot more fun to just be on the buzz alcohol gives you than to be in a state where you have no idea what your name even is anymore.

Thank-you to our anonymous interviewee for answering these few questions for us, it’s our hope that the sharing of experiences like this will help to provide advice and guidance for future readers and community members. If you have anything you’d like to share with us anonymously or not; or if you want to share your thoughts on this interview, feel free to comment or send us an email – we’d love to hear from you!

This week, Queensland Cheers is excited to host their first guest post! Michael Webb writes for people wanting to maintain blissful relationships, but this is something near impossible if your loved one is an alcoholic. Michael took the opportunity to attend an AA meeting, and writes about his experience below.

This past week I attended my first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
I wish I had gone earlier.

Like most of society I have a little bit of anxiety about the
unknown. I didn’t know what to expect when I agreed to drive a
friend to an AA meeting. Would the room be filled with “scary”
people — those you picture hanging out in seedy bars all night?
Or perhaps everyone in the room would be all straight-laced and
uptight — looking down on everyone who wasn’t as “righteous” as
they were.

There were about 50 people there on the night I took my friend (our
city has meetings every night of the week – sometimes three or four
to choose from each day). It was an “open” meeting so as a
non-alcoholic I was welcome. The people there were no different
from the crowd I might find at the movie theater. There were
teenagers and there were retirees. There were bikers and there
were bankers. Housewifes and waitresses. People arrived in
Jaguars and some came by bus. Some people were quiet and reserved.
Others were outgoing and very warm and friendly.

The meeting lasted about one hour. And in case you were wondering,
you only speak up if you want to. You won’t be called on and asked
to share your testimony.

Now I realize that this information would appear to be useless to
most of you. But if I encourage just one person who reads this
to seek help it will have been worth it. Hopefully you will
never need it for you or your mate but I can almost guarantee you
that you will come across an addict at some point in your life and
maybe the only way he or she will ever become sober is if you
recommend and offer to accompany them to a recovery program.

If a friend (or your mate) confided in you that he or she had a
problem with drugs, food, alcohol, sex, pornography, anger or other
addiction, would you know where to turn? If they had a problem but
didn’t want any help, do you know where YOU could go for
professional support?

It is my prayer that if you have been battling with something and
you keep losing, that you will admit that you are powerless over
your addiction and you will make the second step in overcoming what
is keeping your relationship from being truly blissful.

To help kick things off, we wanted to start with some facts and figures about alcohol that you may not have known about. There are so many rumours and myths relating to alcohol it can be confusing to know what’s true and what isn’t. To start off with though, here’s a sobering disclaimer for you: The family of compounds known as alcohols are all toxins that can kill you, whether instantly, quickly, or gradually. Yet one of them – ethyl alcohol, or ethanol – is a staple of the human diet. Archaeologist Patrick McGovern speculates that fermented beverages were made as early as 100,000 years ago, when people first spread out of Africa. According to the Drunken Monkey Hypothesis, our zest for alcoholic beverages derives from our distant ancestors’ impulse to seek the ripest, most energy-intensive fruits. The more you know…

Now you may have heard that some alcoholic beverages such as beer or wine are better for you than liquors. This is false. Beer or wine is not safer to drink than liquor. Fact: One beer has about the same amount of alcohol as one glass of wine, or 1 shot of liquor. It is the amount of ethanol consumed that affects a person most, not the type of alcoholic drink.

The effect alcohol has on an individual varies greatly and can be attributed to a number of different characteristics; a notable one being body weight. Did you know though that a lean, muscular person will be less affected by drink than someone with more body fat? Water-rich muscle tissue is able to absorb alcohol very effectively, preventing it from reaching the brain.

With alcohol, there is no digestion required. Ethanol is such a small, simple molecule that it pours directly out of the stomach and small intestine into the bloodstream. This is why you’ll find you handle your alcohol more easily with a full stomach – the food absorbs more of the alcohol before it pours through and reaches the small intestine.

The real effects alcohol can have on a person are quite startling, and it’s shocking to discover that there is 1 alcohol-related death incident every 31 minutes. That’s insane! That fact alone should be enough to make anyone nervous, especially when coupled with the knowledge that alcohol consumption also clearly increases the risk of cancers (such as lip, tongue, throat, oesophagus, liver, and breast). They’re just statistics though, right? Nothing like that is ever really real until you experience it happening first-hand to someone you know. Here’s a couple of facts that may hit closer to home if you’re familiar with the effect alcohol has on people:

As many as 70% of uni students admit to having engaged in sexual activity primarily as a result of being under the influence of alcohol, or to having sex they wouldn’t have had if they had been sober.

At least one out of five uni students abandon safe sex practices when they’re drunk, even if they do protect themselves when they’re sober.

Don’t forget while you’re downing drinks to wash away regrets that they may in fact lead to new ones – keep an eye on the effect alcohol is having on you. If you’re starting to make decisions you would never make when you’re sober, it’s probably time to start sobering up.

Drunkenness is considered an impairment of the neurons in your head, but Australian researchers recently reported that part of the feeling may result instead from the effect of ethanol on the brain’s immune system. This finding could lead to new treatments for alcoholism. On an unrelated note though, did you know that The Malaysian pen-tailed tree shrew routinely chugs the equivalent of nine glasses of wine a night in naturally fermented nectar, and yet remains fully functional? Jealous? Time to start rounding up some new designated drivers!

We’ll end with a goal for you this year – don’t worry about the fact that it’s already September, it’s never too late to start a resolution! The carbon dioxide in champagne bottles creates 90 pounds of pressure per square inch, which is three times the pressure in automobile tires. Flying corks can cause retinal detachment, double vision, and blindness. So don’t stare at the cork!

We’re a new and upcoming project built around youth drinking culture in Australia, with a community-centric approach to education. We believe that the fastest track to a safe and responsible drinking environment for youths is through education; and it’s our goal to create a community where Queenslander’s can inform and learn from each other as they step into this culture. Australian youths who are struggling with alcohol and its effects should have a support group they can go to, who don’t just throw facts at them but encourages discussion instead. As a Brisbane-based group, we want to connect with youths in Queensland who may feel vulnerable and work to stop progression towards alcoholism.

The Queensland Cheers Blog was founded in order to fill a niche that we feel exists in providing attention and help to Brisbane residents struggling with alcoholism, and aims to provide a safe platform that is both non-judgemental and interesting to its target audience. We want the blog to target youths who are considering embracing the drinking culture, as well as those who want to distance themselves from it or are struggling with pressures surrounding it. It is our hope that by connecting peers with each other in a discussion-based approach we can create a sense of community, where help will always be given to those who ask for it.

The online environment of this blog lets users share and engage with each other through interconnected social networks and forums to seek advice and learn from one another, while still granting complete anonymity to those who desire it. We want you, our readers, to feel that you can utilise this comprehensive source of resources in whatever way you need; whether that’s for advice or simply to discuss your own experiences and feelings regarding alcohol and peer-pressure. You have the power to help the community grow, and it’s always possible that your experience could be the advice that helps out someone you never even knew.

So what are you waiting for? Join in the discussion and help us work together towards a safer, more enjoyable Queensland.